Five Strategies that Create Your Future

If you feel stuck you are. You want to be unstuck but wanting doesn’t change anything. Wanting without acting makes matters worse. Frustration drains you.

Frustration and blame are twins. Where there is blame there is frustration – where there is frustration there is blame. Blame and frustration deepen ruts.

Getting unstuck:

Taking responsibility ends blame and frustration. Acknowledging fault is the beginning of responsibility. Acknowledging fault, however, is never sufficient.

Taking responsibility is solution-finding, planning, and acting.

Nothing less than action indicates you’ve taken responsibility.

Five strategies for creating your future:

Deal with past failures or offences. Your history is not your future but if you don’t take responsibility it will be.

Take one step. Reject all or nothing thinking. If you try to fix everything, you’ll end up fixing nothing. Try things. Fail fast – fail cheap – learn and grow.

Invite others in. Aloneness is the safe world you’ve built. It keeps you stuck. Vulnerability invites others in and destroys aloneness. My coach Bob Hancox keeps bringing this up to me. Thanks Bob.

Advance the agenda. It’s important and useful to express your frustrations. It’s more important to advance the agenda – to move through frustrations to a simple next step, regardless of how small that step is. Doug Conant taught me to move the agenda forward. A conversation that doesn’t move the agenda forward is one more downward step.

Hi Dan, great novel post and certainly timely when everthying around us seems so ephemeral. I have gotten stuck in the past and stuck in the present and mired in my fear of the future. Again I reach out to my circle for help. When things are moving slowly is that a form of being pinned? How do we know the difference? Sometimes it is very appropriate to proceed with caution albeit the onlookers see you glued. The perception of being rooted can be difficult to erase and that is where enlisting help for guidance is so neccessary. First comes identification of one’s position, followed by concerted action. Lastly being stuck may not always be a bad thing if the time is used wisely and it helps you gather information and one never wants to fall into the trap of being a leader that is a “stuck-up.” 🙂

Hello, Dan!I am currently in the middle of writing my latest blog and stopped to take a break and started checking emails. I came across your link for your blog and could not agree more. The fact of the matter, it came at the most important time. I am currently writing on the subject of acknowledgement. If you do not mind, I would like to refer people to your link, as well! I am glad to be connected to you. I look forward to future readings. Please check mine out, also.

One gets stuck at various stages of career. It could be due to several reasons beyond one’s control and it’s difficult to remain in high spirit all the time. However, one requires good patience in difficult times and should look for possible solutions. One should remain focused to specific goals as undertaken and work with a cool mind with positive outlook.

One of the things that helps my coaching clients (and me) get unstuck is to envision what unstuck will look and feel like. This approach is in keeping with #2 of the list. However, it is also in keeping with taking an optimistic and positive look forward. It seems to energize and move the brain from reaction to reflection.

If yout stuck at the point of “There’s nothing I can do!” then perhaps you’not stuck deep enough yet. In 2008, I was truly stuck and determined that ‘whatever it took’ is what I was willing to do. I did not ask for a renewal of my contract, sold my home and most of my belongings, bought a 15′ travel travel and hit the road. After sevem months, I found that the grography had been right but the vocation was the problem. I now work for a non-profit for 1/3 the pay and three times as much time to enjoy life. Found the difference between need and want and became satisfied/content with what I need.

If you ever want to learn one of life’s best lessons; be part of a failure. I don’t suggest that you go out and try to fail. When you are trying your best, along with those around you, and you still don’t succeed, the lessons when you look back can be of great importance. Remember, failure doesn’t always come with fault.

Not sure I agree with darleenw ‘Think Less, Move More’ I think it’s often about taking time out to reflect, i.e. to think more (not less). Of course, I would say this, being a coach, but coaching helps me (& my clients) to get unstuck – I agree with Cinnie that helping to ‘envision what unstuck will look and feel like’ often moves people past stuck. For me, there’s also something about accepting you are where you are (not beating yourself up for getting stuck) & then looking at what you want – another way of not focusing on the stuck. That’s a lot of ‘stucks’ and ‘unstucks’ in 1 paragraph – hope it makes sense!